Rosa Lee Parks Rosa Lee Parks was an African American woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Rosa Parks refusal helped bring about the civil rights movement in the United States. Rosa Lee McCauley was the daughter of James and Leona (Edwards) McCauley. She was born in Tuskegee,Alabama on February 4, 1913. Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress. Rosa Parks was well educated in a rural schoolhouse. When she completed her education in Pine Level at the age of eleven her mother enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private institution. She went to Alabama State Tea